Monday, October 18, 2010

Mundo Churrasco

Mundo Churrascohttp://www.mundochurrasco.com.au/

I was privileged with the task of helping a good mate of mine find somewhere to host his birthday party dinner this year. After tossing through some mighty fine suggestions (Lefkas Taverna, somewhere I've always wanted to go, just barely missed the cut), we ended up selecting Mundo because he just couldn't get past the notion of a meat buffet.

I've had a few experiences with churrasco before, both in Australia and overseas. The concept originates from Brazil and the idea is you sit at a table whilst waiters come around with giant skewers of grilled meat and they shave some off for you. Churrasco is limitless and is guaranteed to appeal to anyone who enjoys their meat. When I had it in China, there was also a salad bar with greens, desserts and so on but every restaurant is different.Mundo Churrasco is located in the Northside. For some reason, I thought it was near Caxton Street. It wasn't. I got very lost navigating there.

The restaurant itself is bright, contemporary and lively. I was late and most people had already started eating. When you're seated, you get given a 2-sided token and the idea is, you expose the green side if you're keen for more and you put the red side up if your belly is about to pop. We noticed that throughout the night, noone seemed to be paying any attention to the tokens and by the end, when everyone had the red side up, we were still being offered more meat.

In terms of the meat itself, there was a liberal selection of sausages and different cuts of common and game meat. Everything looked and smelt quite delicious.

However, meat is meat and after an hour, even our keenest eaters were politely declining extra serves.

Birthday boy's plate

I think a lot of people become concerned about 'how do I wash all the meat down'. At Mundo, there are also roasted vegetables and fresh salad that come around on a tray. At your table, there are a few condiments to help flavor your meat.

Pina colada

You can also do what I did and order some sweet, chilled beverages. I picked a pina colada and it was decent. Nothing elaborate (in fact, it tasted like a 'slightly' creamier version of a Malibu pineapple) but more alcoholic than some other places.

My mate Hao was half asleep the entire time and ordered a coffee. We're not sure if it's just because he REALLY NEEDED A LIFT but he claimed that was the best coffee he's ever had.

Pudim de Leite - Brazilian version of the cream brulee, caramel cream

All the guests seemed to have a ball at Mundo. The only thing that felt irritating was that we had to leave after an hour and half because the table was rebooked. They did notify us beforehand when we made our booking though, so it wasn't exactly a surprise. It just happens to be one of my pet hates so perhaps you could book the 2nd sitting or just go on a quieter night.

Chefs in the kitchen (plus my arm in the reflection)

This might be a problem for some people but on Saturday night at least, Mundo has nothing BUT the churrasco. So if you're being forced to go and aren't huge on eating meat, you could either get the vegetarian churrasco (IMO not a deal, price-wise) or just sit pretty. You're allowed to just not eat and order drinks but the management warns, if you're caught eating by any of the staff, you'll be automatically charged. Which is fair enough. But some ala carte options would help to prevent that situation for people who don't like the idea of all you can eat.

Hi Chris...Thanks for your reading my reviews :D. I think I used to put prices when I first started writing but the reason I don't anymore is because prices are constantly going up. I've thought about doing that whole '$' thing where the more '$$$$' signs, the dearer a restaurant is but I realize now that everyone has a different perception on what 'expensive' or 'cheap' is and it also really depends on what you order (e.g. 3 courses per person vs stuff to share).